Bizarre 'Bigfoot' murder trial starts Tuesday in southeast Oklahoma

ADA − On a scorching hot summer afternoon, the two friends had headed to a fishing spot on the South Canadian River to cool off and go noodling for catfish.

At some point, they stopped at a convenience store to buy beer.

Only one would return alive that Saturday.

Larry Doil Sanders came back from the river alone. He was shirtless and told a bizarre tale of being in a fight to the death to keep from being fed to Bigfoot.

He confessed to killing Jimmy Glenn Knighten after a long struggle because he thought his friend was summoning Bigfoot to eat him. A search of the river the next day turned up Knighten's body in the woods.

Sanders was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. He is accused of strangling Knighten on July 9, 2022.

His trial is set to begin Tuesday at the Pontotoc County courthouse, about 90 miles southeast of Oklahoma City.

At issue will be whether Sanders knew right from wrong when he put Knighten in a chokehold. A judge, not a jury, will decide.

His attorney gave notice in 2022 that Sanders will raise at trial "the defense of mental illness or insanity at the time of offense."

A Tulsa forensic psychiatrist, Reagan Gill, concluded Sanders experienced paranoia and hallucinations on July 9, 2022, due to a "methamphetamine-induced psychotic disorder," according to a defense filing. The expert also diagnosed Sanders as bipolar.

If convicted of murder, Sanders will be sent to prison. District Judge Steve Kessinger could sentence him to life or life without the possibility of parole.

If acquitted by reason of insanity or mental illness, Sanders will be sent to a state facility for evaluation. He could end up being confined to the Oklahoma Forensic Center in Vinita for treatment for the rest of his life.

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Last year, there were 37 patients at that center who had been found not guilty by reason of insanity, according to the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. One had been a patient for more than 40 years.

Another 36 were there after being found not guilty by reason of mental illness.

Referring to someone as insane has come to be considered derogatory in society but is still part of the law in Oklahoma in criminal proceedings.

Sanders in March waived his right to a jury.

Bigfoot is a mythical creature that is also known as a sasquatch. It is most commonly associated with the woods of northwestern United States and western Canada. In Oklahoma, a state legislator unsuccessfully tried in 2021 to establish a Bigfoot hunting season.

A popular 2021 Hulu true-crime documentary series, "Sasquatch," focuses at the start on wild rumors of three men being killed in 1993 by such a creature in California. A 2020 book, "Devolution," is a fictional account of an attack by a Bigfoot clan after Mount Rainier explodes in the state of Washington.

What will happen at Larry Sanders' trial

During the trial, the judge will hear about Sanders' multiple confessions and how he drew a map that assisted searchers in finding the body.

Sanders told one witness that he killed Knighten because he had "set him up," according to a court affidavit. He told an investigator that "sasquatches were gathering on the South Canadian River and he was to be a sacrifice to them," according to testimony at his preliminary hearing.

The investigator, Justin Brown, a special agent with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, interviewed Sanders in jail on July 10, 2022.

"I don't recall specifically if he said he had seen them in the past, but I know that he said he saw them in this instance for certain," Brown testified at the preliminary hearing in 2022.

The agent also testified Sanders believed that the creatures were the descendants of Native Americans who had been forced out of their tribes and into the woods long ago.

The judge also will hear first from the defense's expert and then from an expert hired by prosecutors.

The prosecution expert is Shawn Roberson, an Edmond forensic psychologist who is widely respected because he has called it both ways on the insanity issue. He concluded Sanders cannot be considered insane under Oklahoma law.

The judge also could hear directly from Sanders.

"The Defendant reserves the right to testify in his own defense if he so chooses," his attorney, Larry Balcerak, told the judge in a legal filing.

His sister, Ginger Skipper, if called to testify, will say Sanders had run out of his mental health medications in April or May 2022, according to the legal filing. She had attempted to get a refill but was told he had to meet with his doctor first.

The trial is expected to last three days.

Sanders, now 55, has been in custody since returning from the river. He was living in Atwood, according to his murder charge. The victim, who was 52, lived in nearby Allen.

A witness who saw them at the convenience store on July 9, 2022, described Sanders as appearing happy, according to a court filing. Sanders had said that he had gotten a new job working for Knighten.

Sanders has a long criminal record and has been to prison twice for assaults and thefts, records show. He was put on probation for five years for bringing methamphetamine into the Pontotoc County jail in 2019 after a public intoxication arrest.

He had told a Pontotoc County deputy sheriff at the time of his arrest "that he usually used a little meth to get him going in the mornings."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Murder trial begins for noodler who feared Bigfoot was going to eat him